Law, Language, and the Latin American Constitutions

Abstract

Latin America has many languages and many constitutions. This article provides a general overview of the ways in which some constitutions of states of Latin America relate to the multi-lingual context in which they operate. After providing a brief account of Latin American constitutional history in Part I, the essay will thus consider the relationship between language and constitutions in three different contexts: the creation of new constitutions, constitutional protection of language rights, and the process of making a constitution accessible to speakers of a language different from the one in which it was originally written.

Keywords: law and language, language rights, constitution-making, Latin American constitutionalism, Bolivia, Colombia, Venezuela